


Faltering Recovery

by sailboatsupernova



Category: Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Drabble, Gen, Head Injury, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Memory Loss, No Dialogue, Self-Hatred, Stuttering, it's nothing too bad though, tremors - Freeform, unnamed character - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-13
Updated: 2016-11-13
Packaged: 2018-08-30 18:03:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8543554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sailboatsupernova/pseuds/sailboatsupernova
Summary: Word spread fast through the Mojave, either through word of mouth or the airwaves. She would never had expected that she would be mentioned on the radio though. Not in a million years. "Full recovery," the voice on the other side of her Pip-Boy speaker had said, when talking about her survival. It was a nice thought really, but she doubted that anyone who had spoken with her after the incident would agree.





	

**Author's Note:**

> 'Cause chances are you're not going to come out of getting shot in the head being 100% okay.

Word spread fast through the Mojave, either through word of mouth or the airwaves. 

She would never had expected that she would be mentioned on the radio though. Not in a million years. 

" _Full_ _recovery_ ," the voice on the other side of her Pip-Boy speaker had said, when talking about her survival. It was a nice thought really, but she doubted that anyone who had spoken with her after the incident would agree. 

You wouldn't even be able to tell anything had happened just by looking at her face. That doctor had really worked some miracles on that end; a small scar where the bullet had entered her skull was the only remaining mark. Hardly noticeable. 

The tremor she developed in her left hand was much more obvious. It was constant but it only tended to get unbearable when she was idle, when her mind wandered and her body relaxed. At this point she was just thankful it wasn't her dominate hand-- or at least as thankful as she could be. 

That was nothing compared to the _stuttering_ though. While she didn't remember much from before the shot, she could recall being able to carry conversations with full sentences. Now she could hardly get three words out without stumbling over constants and vowels. 

There wasn't even a pattern or any particular letter that gave her a hard time. It was random, frequent. Annoying. Obnoxious-- _aggravating_. 

It was embarrassing. 

It was _frustrating_. 

No one seemed to hold it against her. Everyone had been patient so far with her new disabilities. That did nothing to ease her mind on the matter. It almost made her feel _worse_. 

She almost didn't want their patience. She didn't want the new people she met to think that _this_ was how she was. 

Some days she thought she would go insane. Just finally snap under the constant pressure of her own loathing and take a knife to her larynx. 

 

 

 

She hadn't though. 

She had learned to live with it. Adapted, like the wildlife and the plants and the earth did after the bomb dropped. 

She learned to shorten her sentences. To say what she meant and get to the heart of the matter. Anything beyond that could be pantomimed. 

Working with her capabilities became easier as time went on. Life became easier as she grew used to her new limitations, and while her resentment of the Man in the Checkered Suit grew, so did the list of people who would support her. 

It didn't change the few days where she was still miserable with herself. Or when her hand was giving her a particularly hard time and she was considering simply cutting it off. But it was getting bearable. Slowly but surely, it was getting _better_. 

Chances were that she would never speak normally again. The tremor wouldn't disappear and would probably get worse with age. The odds were stacked against her on finding the man who shot her. More likely she'd be eaten by something in the desert before she even made it to New Vegas. 

But giving up was not an option. Not after listening to some guy with no fashion sense say stupid, vague phrases at her about rigged games-- not after getting shot for no good reason. 

She would either die in the desert or return the man's favor. Gambling wasn't her bag, but she was willing to bet on the latter. 

She was willing to bet on herself. 

After all, at this point she was just pissed off enough to make it work. 

**Author's Note:**

> Based on my own New Vegas character and the headcanons I gave her. Remains unnamed in the story because I literally just named her "Courier". Thought it sounded rad and mixed with the whole bullet induced memory loss thing.


End file.
